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Coeur-de-Lion Part I

© Wendy J. Dunn

Richard I "The Lionhearted" b. 1157, reigned 1189-1199, d. 1199

Richard I, "The Lionhearted" is probably the most famous of England's illustrious royal line. He is also an enigma - a warrior of legendary ability, a paragon of chivalry, and, historians tend to agree, homosexual. He is undoubtedly best remembered for his role in the Third Crusade, immortalized in literature in the Tales of Robin Hood and Ivanhoe. But who was Richard, really?

The third son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine was enthroned as Duke of Aquitaine in 1172, but he was not permitted to rule by Henry II. He, like his brothers Henry "The Young King", and Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, had no authority, and this frustration boiled over into rebellion time and again. In 1173-1174, he joined his brothers in rebellion against their father; later (1183) he fought those same brothers when they supported a rebellion against him in Aquitaine. Between 1183 when the Young King died, and 1189 Richard was constantly at war, mostly with his father. Henry II died at Chinon, France in 1189, after a military defeat by his oldest surviving son.

Crowned at Westminster Abbey at age 32, he was everything expected from a king: tall, powerful, well educated, courageous. He spoke little English, and in his ten year reign he spent only 7 months in England. The rest was spent in the Holy Land, fighting Saladin, and as a captive of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI.

Though Richard had opposed his father's ironclad authority for years, after becoming king he made few changes in the administration of the kingdom. Henry II had a well-organized system that actually aided Richard in what he was about to do. He was going on Crusade, and that took money. For the new king, England was a source of men and gold, and nothing more. It was in this context that the massacre of the Jews of York took place - something Richard deplored not for its inhumanity, but because the Jews were able to raise large sums of money for his pet project. Richard went to the extreme of hanging three of the participants by way of example to the rest, took his treasure, and set sail for France, where he was to join Phillip Augustus on Crusade.

To govern the kingdom in his absence, Richard had selected William de Longchamps as chief officer of the Crown, and his mother Eleanor as Regent. Both were unfailingly loyal to the absent king, and these choices stood him in good stead. Trouble was brewing at home and abroad, and Richard would need loyal subjects in the years to come.

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